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Category Archives: 100 word story

Maddie approached the stick, fascinated. It had just been left, jutting out of a snow drift, glowing softly – as if it wanted to be noticed. She picked it up and shook it.

Snow started to fall, gently at first, then faster – snowflakes whirling under the street lights. Maddie laughed, delighted. She waved the stick like a conductor’s baton, wanting more snow, but it stopped almost immediately.

I remember being left behind, because they were always doing that. Turning back and giggling, faces close, dressed the same, as if they had some codeword.

Maybe they did.

I sometimes tried to follow them, but they would run ahead, until all I could hear was their laughter. Then I’d pretend I’d just gone into the woods to gather berries, or leaves. I’d pretend I didn’t care.

I pretended so hard, for so long, that I lost track of what I cared about. I was like a locked book, key lost in the forest.

She’d clattered up the stairs, along the corridor, and into his lab, clutching a black linen bag to her chest. She’d begged him for help. He still wasn’t sure.

“You realise it’s a particle/wave ionisation device? It will move you in time, or space, but it’s not perfected yet. You could end up anywhere. Any-when”.

They could both hear the footsteps in the distance, coming closer.

“There’s no other way. Please -” she begged him – “Do it”.

And he flicked the switch.

When the guards arrived, he was alone, tapping away quietly on his keyboard. They ripped the lab apart, but there was nothing to find.

Twenty-seven years later, he still thought about her from time to time – wondered if he’d done the right thing, why she was so desperate, where she’d ended up. Somehow it wasn’t surprising that, as he tidied up his desk, just after 6pm on Friday 17th June, she appeared in corner of the lab. She looked dazed, walked over to him and touched his cheek gently.

“You got old” she whispered. He nodded, silent.

She opened the bag, then, and showed him something he had thought he’d never see again. Bees. A roiling, buzzing mass of them. He turned to look out of the window, at the grove of almond trees, that had blossomed but not fruited for the last seven years.

When he turned back, she saw that he was crying.

This is for Jenny Maloney’s Wednesday challenge. She’s sent us to the New Age Bullshit Generator, to inspire ourselves with random New Age style ramblings. Hence the slightly weird title. I’d like to see a randon right-wing rant generator – except I think there might be one in the White House. Anyhow, it didn’t turn out very New Age, but there you go. It comes in at 250 words, which is fairly flash.

We were seven sisters, so mum colour coded our clothes to make mornings run more smoothly. We’re not seven any more: Red ran off with a tight-rope walker and sends back pictures of herself in spangles; Orange keeps a hundred different kinds of chicken, and makes pots of unlikely jam; Yellow’s on an ashram in India, finding herself; Green is a corporate lawyer and only ever wears black; Blue – well, you know what happened to her; baby Violet is a tattoo artist in Birmingham; and me? I write angry love poems and wear whatever colour I please.

If you find a bottle on the beach, with a message in it, you open it. Jenny pulled out the paper, spread it flat, read it excitedly, then sighed. Dated today. Sent from this beach. Written carefully in a childish hand, asking the finder to write back to “JESSIE GRAY”. She screwed it up, irritated, shoved it deep into her coat pocket, walked on. At the far end of the beach she met a child, ankle deep in water, gazing out to sea. “I sent a message in a bottle” the child told her. “It could go anywhere”. Jenny nodded.

So, I’ve been reading Jenny’s 100 word stories for a while, and loving them. Today I have a chance to write my own. I say “chance” – could have done it any time, I suppose. Anyhow, it’s a lot trickier than it looks. 100 words is NOTHING.